Andy Murray suffered a painful loss in the first round of the 2023 Madrid Open and extended his losing streak to four matches.
It all started going south for the Scot when he lost to compatriot Jack Draper in Indian Wells. Murray then also lost to Dusan Lajovic in Miami and his third consecutive loss came on the clay courts of the Monte-Carlo Country Club. At the 2023 Madrid Open, the former world no. 1 wanted to turn his luck around and the draw of the ATP 1000 event made it possible for him to do that.
Murray was drawn against world no. 164 Andrea Vavassori and so his chances of getting past the first obstacle were very high. Although, he initially considered skipping the clay-court season, Murray even added an ATP Challenger event on clay to his calendar and so he was surely hoping for a good showing in the Spanish capital.
But it all went bad for Murray since the match started. He lost his first service game to love and after another break from his opponent, the world no. 52 was already down 0-4 in the first set and with Vavassori's break point in the fifth game, it could have been a bagel for the Scot in the opening set.
But the 35-year-old managed to hold his following two service games but since he couldn't break his opponent, he lost the first set 2-6. Murray faced a deficit also early in the second set, being down already 2-4.
But he won the following three games to lead 5-4 and eventually took the second set into a tie-break. Murray was down already 5-1 in the tie-break, but after facing three match points, he managed to make it six all.
But then, he totally missed a volley which just needed to go over the net for him to win a point, and that was the start of the disaster for him as he eventually lost the tie-break 7-9 and exited the 2023 Madrid Open already in the first round.
When Murray considered skipping the clay-court season altogether after the loss in Monte Carlo, he will surely need to reassess the situation now and consider if he wants to keep playing on this surface or focus on the grass-court part of the season, where he had so much success in the past.
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